


Chasm

by heartswells



Series: Eruri Week 2016 [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Day Six: Hurt-Comfort/Healing & Sickness, Eruri Week 2016, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6070768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartswells/pseuds/heartswells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I expect you think I believe suicide is cowardice."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasm

**Author's Note:**

> I’m delirious and fucked up right now so this piece is probably incoherent.

“Your medication is not optional, Levi.” Erwin’s voice had become glacial with impatience and agitation. Levi’s obstinance was impermissible, and Erwin possessed no interest in tangling himself in the petulant web he assumed Levi had spun around the pill bottle.

 

But Levi said nothing.

 

“You are needed on the field, _Captain_.”

 

Pneumonia was desecrating Levi’s body, and he was withering. His skin was ashen and sullen, a greasy, sticky sheen of sweat pooling in the pores. From behind his flaking lips, wheezing breaths and harsh, gargling coughs racked his chest. His eyes were ever unfocused; his fingertips ever trembling. All the hardness of his body had been drained, and he seemed meek, like a dead leaf rotting in a puddle.

 

“Why are you refusing it?” Erwin resigned to Levi’s stubbornness, pulling out the desk chair in Levi’s room and settling down with a stack of paperwork. He had no intention of leaving until Levi complied.

 

Again, Levi said nothing.

 

Levi evaded Erwin’s analytical abilities. Like a disease, Erwin infiltrated the crevices of the minds of powerful men with ease. Nobles and politicians, and leaders and manipulators alike, were deconstructed and rearranged at Erwin’s fingertips. However, Levi, so erratic and rogue, could not be. There was a certain finesse Levi failed to possess, and in many ways, he was strikingly unintelligent for a man of his capabilities: uneducated, unanalytical, tactless, emotional, and vengeful. He possessed no obvious direction and lacked a certain ambitious selfishness. He was far too pure and far too wild for Erwin to dissect.

 

Still, Levi said nothing.

 

“Why… do you take medication,” Levi inquired hours later.

 

“To heal your body,” Erwin retorted, offering little attention with his rhetorical response.

 

“No. What… motivates you? Why… Why do it?” The words he sought were elusive, and he struggled to dredge the turmoil intoxicating him out from the depths of his body. Erwin set his pen down and looked towards him.

 

“I am the commander: my life is not my own. I do what I must to sustain the corp.”

 

It was not the answer Levi was seeking, and Erwin’s failure to sympathize should have made him angry, but he was numb, and he was exhausted. He _needed_ Erwin to understand because he himself did not know what he was feeling. He needed Erwin to hear his words and explain to him what he felt with callous dismissal. He needed Erwin to answer him, invalidate him even with cold analysis. He needed Erwin to hear him.

 

“If my body can’t heal  on its own, maybe it’s not supposed to be alive.” Levi’s words were soft, like a child in a church, lacking the sinister hopelessness the words suggested. Erwin flinched.

 

“I expect you think I believe suicide is cowardice,” he continued.

 

“Levi.”

 

“I’m not trying to kill myself,” he answered dully.

 

“Then what are you hoping to accomplish,” he demanded. Fearful irritation began boiling in Erwin’s blood at Levi’s sudden dark nonsense.

 

“Do you want the titans to kill you,” Levi asked after a pause.

 

“I have a duty, Levi. I do not _want_ the titans to kill me,” he growled, but Levi did not respond emotionally.

 

“I dream about dying, and I wonder…  Do I want to die in battle? Would it be an honor to die alongside my comrades or would it mean I had failed? What would it mean to die by illness, or by murder, or by injury? If you could choose, how would you die? And we can choose. So why don’t we? Or have we all chosen by being here.”

 

Erwin was at a loss for words. Death was forced to pass through Erwin’s life like oxygen. A commander must accept the winter into his bones and drink death’s venom like wine. He must inhale and exhale death like oxygen, allowing it to pass through his system with noxious ease. He mustn't spare time on death, for life _goes on_ and death does not. Almost, he must pretend it did not exist.

 

“You shouldn’t focus on such things, Levi.” He said finally.

 

“You wouldn’t know, would you,” he spat, and Erwin felt the chasm splitting beneath their feet. The foundation of the home they shared in one another was filled with cracks; it’s roof lacked shingles, it’s windows lacked glass, and far too many doors were locked with lost keys. Erwin would do anything to stitch their wounds closed and make their reflections identical, but they did not share a culture. Their seams were crudely sewn, and too often, they tore.

 

“Levi,” he said, voice hard with rage. “ _I_ don’t want you to die. And I don’t care _how_ you die. I only care _if_ you die.”

 

Levi took the medication an hour later.

 

Erwin wondered how he wanted to die.


End file.
